The Chapelle No-show
Posted by Ross

At least out here in lala land, the continuing saga of Dave Chapelle has become something of a spectator sport. There's billboards proclaiming the new season of his insanely successful Comedy Central show will be starting any day now. Yet, the sad fact remains that no new shows have been made because... well, no one's really sure why.

There's been plenty of rumors circulating. I was even at an interview with Eric Idol on Monday night, and during the audience Q&A, someone asked Idol what he thought about Chapelle.

But something I so far haven't heard anybody mention is that Chapelle himself hinted on his very show that something like this might happen. It was in the form of a funny sketch, in which Chapelle marries Oprah, becomes phenominally rich, and no longer has any desire to work, worrying the Comedy Central brass as he disappears for long spells of time, sits on the couch all day watching TV, and so on. Sound familiar?

That's because Chapelle has become insanely rich with his fast-selling DVDs and recent contract signed with Comedy Central. Is it a case of art imitating life? Well, yeah. But, more to the point, that sketch served as fair warning of Chapelle's emotional state.

It's like after another tragic school shooting, once the dust has cleared, you start to realize that there were signs, lots of signs, that either weren't noticed, or were misinterpreted, or outright ignored, about how troubled this kid was.

Before Brian Wilson dropped off planet earth, he wrote a song for Pet Sounds called "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times."

And in "Help", John Lennon was doing more than creating a timeless rocker and centerpiece for the Beatles' second film, he was describing in rather painful detail his fragmented mental state.

Stephen King wrote a novel a few years back called "Bag of Bones," whose protagonist is a King-esque author who finds himself unable to write another novel. Yet he keps publishing because he has a back-log of emergency novels kept in a safety deposit box.

When King announced a few years ago that he would no longer be writing novels, I remembered "Bag of Bones," and wondered if King hadn't been, for the last few years, publishing old novels he'd kept in a safety deposit box. That would explain "Insomnia."

And so David Chapelle continues to do whatever he needs to be doing. But it's not all bad. At least South Park continues to churn out new episodes.